HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

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DIARY OF A SLOWLY RECOVERING HEROIN ADDICT

I used to take heroin at every opportunity, for over 10 years, now I just take methadone which supposedly "stabilizes" me though I feel more destabilized than ever before despite having been relatively well behaved since late November/early December 2010... and VERY ANGRY about this when I let it get to me so I try not to.

I was told by a mental health nurse that my heroin addiction was "self medication" for a mood disorder that has recently become severe enough to cause psychotic episodes. As well as methadone I take antipsychotics daily. Despite my problems I consider myself a very sane person. My priority is to attain stability. I go to Narcotics Anonymous because I "want what they have" ~ Serenity.

My old blog used to say "candid confessions of a heroin and crack cocaine addict" how come that one comes up when I google "heroin blog" and not this one. THIS IS MY BLOG. I don't flatter myself that every reader knows everything about me and follows closely every single word every day which is why I repeat myself. Most of that is for your benefit not mine.

This is my own private diary, my journal. It is aimed at impressing no-one. It is kept for my own benefit to show where I have been and hopefully to put off somebody somewhere from ever getting into the awful mess I did and still cannot crawl out of. Despite no drugs. I still drink, I'm currently working on reducing my alcohol intake to zero.

If you have something to say you are welcome to comment. Frankness I can handle. Timewasters should try their own suggestions on themselves before wasting time thinking of ME.

PS After years of waxing and waning "mental" symptoms that made me think I had depression and possibly mild bipolar I now have found out I'm schizoaffective. My mood has been constantly "cycling" since December 2010. Mostly towards mania (an excited non-druggy "high"). For me, schizoaffective means bipolar with (sometimes severe)
mania and flashes of depression (occasionally severe) with bits of schizophrenia chucked on top. You could see it as bipolar manic-depression with sparkly knobs on ... I'm on antipsychotic pills but currently no mood stabilizer. I quite enjoy being a bit manic it gives the feelings of confidence and excitement people say they use cocaine for. But this is natural and it's free, so I don't see my "illness" as a downer. It does, however, make life exceedingly hard to engage with...

PPS The "elevated mood" is long gone. Now I'm depressed. Forget any ideas of "happiness" I have given up heroin and want OFF methadone as quick as humanly possible. I'm fed up of being a drug addict. Sick to death of it. I wanna be CLEAN!!!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Thursday, November 04, 2010

IS ALL THIS BANGING ON ABOUT CHINESE annoying y'all?

I was desperate for a hobby, desperate for a heroin-replacement (granted: Chinese wouldn't make a good heroin-substitute for most people, but it does for me).
I was also desperate to educate myself. I wish to speak Chinese and Japanese fluently. There is nothing new about this goal, which has been with me since my teens. So I have decided (or fixated) on training myself up as a translator. To be a qualified translator, you need a postgraduate degree on top of a language BA. Most translators can offer at least two languages on top of their own, so there is no conflict between improving my German and French and studying Chinese. Especially as I could do that post-grad in Germany, which would effectively qualify me to translate Chinese into German as well as English. German is the number one business language of Europe (after English, of course) and Chinese, as we all know, is the most-spoken language anywhere on earth. So I doubt I'd be out of work...
I've been looking into BA courses in Chinese actually in China. Annual tuition fees start from about £1600 ($2500US) pa for four years.
One of the websites I consulted complained that many of these courses concentrate on reading and writing at the expense of listening and speaking. But who cares, when you can pop outside to an authentic Chinese noodle-stall and listen and speak to your heart's content?
One major major hurdle is that every course I have looked at imposes a meximum age limit of between 30 and 40 years ~ I am 39 next spring.
But where there's a will there's a way. I have a cunning plan up my sleeve that might hopefully put some oomph behind my appeal against this ridiculous regulation.
Oxford, Cambridge and London universities offer Chinese and Japanese studies, but the prospectuses state rather bafflingly that a prior knowledge of the language won't help your application that much. Plus they specify that their courses aren't suitable for native speakers. Looking closer I see why: these courses promise only to take you to about a year past A-level ~ which is where my German is now! Which all in all suggests that if I cannot do Chinese in China I may as well get on to a "Sinologie" course in Germany, killing two linguistic birds with one stone.
I desperately need a copy of Hammer's German Grammar (the standard advanced reference work). My written German is still pretty dire ~ despite my daily blogging attempts. I'm having less and less trouble reading zentraleuropäische books and websites as time goes by, which shows I'm at least making some progress. (And I do know the German for a corpse (eine Leiche), which means I can describe my face in the mirror at six in the morning...)
I do apologize once more if my whittering is boring. I have a slightly obsessive temperament, you might see... Which also might explain why I've found heroin so very hard to kick.
Right from the word go I had a sense that my drug addiction had turned my strengths against me ~ so now my strengths were weaknesses. When I love something I give it everything. I have loved "B" like nothing else. So I gave my entire life to heroin.
And that, my friends, has been the crux of my problem...

Illustrated: Chengdu (top), home of the University of Sichuan... famous for its Szechuan chicken (bottom)!

Chinese for today:
Zhe4 这=this shi4 是=to be ren4shi 认识=recognize
zhen1 真=really gao1xing4 高兴=happy bei1 杯=cup
jiu3 酒=alcohol ba 把=suggestion particle
ne 呢=question particle hui4 会=know how/can/will
ju2zi 桔子=orange 橘子 also = ju2zi, orange
ju2zi-zhi1 橘子汁 / 桔子汁 = orange juice
ma 吗 = question particle

The numbers refer to tones: 1 high level; 2 high rising; 3 mid-low-mid dipping 4 falling. No number=neutral tone (the de facto 5th tone).

Chinese names

12 comments:

Syd said...

I hope that you will pursue the interest and study of languages. It sounds like a great goal. Keep putting it into action.

Gledwood said...

I find it hard not to. Only "proper" hobby I got.

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Have a great weekend, Gledds. Have fun studying.

Love,

SB

Akelamalu said...

Well if you must have an obsession better it be languages than heroin Gleds. Good Luck with it all. x

Gledwood said...

Cheers m'dears. And a wondrous weekend to y'all!

Marcus Easley said...

There are many drugs that cause addiction as that found in Findrxonline: Vicodin(which relieves Chronic Pain), which should be taken with medical supervision as well just avoid addiction.There are many drugs that cause addiction as that found in Findrxonline: vicodin (which relieves chronic pain), which should be taken with medical supervision as well just avoid addiction.

Gledwood said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gledwood said...

Something I noticed from my time online and talking to addicts across the Pond: abuse of pharmaceutical painkillers there is far more rife than it is here. In fact I don't know anyone who has abused "oxy" or "dilaudid" or anything similar in the past couple of years... if ever.
Here, street opiates means heroin and methadone as a poor substitute.
I take methadone because I (now) WANT to be opiate clean, though it's still an uphill battle. But heroin and methadone are the only choices. Methadone ampules for injection occasionally arise as 50mg in 1ml - they are ordinarily scripted by private doctors (and why on earth would you want to sell something like that? But that's just me: I'm a drug user not a drug dealer...) The other heroin substitute occasionally seen, which also used to be more common is dihydrocodeine pills - aka "DFs" (short for DF118, which it (apparently) used to actually say on one side of the pills... As far as the UK and opiates goes, that's about it...
Perhaps I should add that the figures I read put the UK, with its 60 million population AHEAD of the US (with 300 million) in heroin consumption at 35 tonnes annually, compared to about 20.
Which figures I personally find hard to believe, but I have encountered them more than once...

Vincent said...

Hey mate, I'm glad to see you have such a passion for languages. I hope they manage to keep your thoughts of the dope a bit more, it can only be good for you no?

I hope you're well!

V.

Noah said...

Damn Gleds...all this talk of heroin has made me get another shot of this nasty, sticky, but highly potent black tar ready for injection. Right-O then...time to soothe the receptors! Later Old Chap.

three sea horses said...

Hi, you visited my blog in June! i havent done any blog since then, been busy and (boring)!
what an amazing blog is yours :)
as for Sea Horses, i have got a link on the blog to a Sea Horses website, but the reason is because i like them, and was first taught to count (to 3) by my mother using the 3 seahorses on the wall (red, green, blue) (like flying ducks etc) in our house in Brazil where we lived for a bit. and i like them. oh i said that.
and thank you for visiting blog and comment - am in Scotland btw.

Furtheron said...

Can they do the age thing these days? I'd have thought that was illegal. It ought to be any road

I WANT OFF METHADONE AS QUICK AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

METHADONE ~ A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH







Heroin Shortage: News

If you are looking for the British Heroin Drought post, click here; the latest word is in the comments.







Christiane F

"Wir, Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo" by "Christiane F", memoir of a teenage heroin addict and prostitute, was a massive bestseller in Europe and is now a set text in German schools. Bahnhoff Zoo was, until recently, Berlin's central railway station. A kind of equivalent (in more ways than one) to London's King's Cross... Of course my local library doesn't have it. So I'm going to have to order it through a bookshop and plough through the text in German. I asked my druggieworker Maple Syrup, who is Italiana how she learned English and she said reading books is the best way. CHRISTIANE F: TRAILER You can watch the entire 120-min movie in 12 parts at my Random blog. Every section EXCEPT part one is subtitled in English (sorry: but if you skip past you still get the gist) ~ to watch it all click HERE.

To See Gledwood's Entire Blog...

DID you find my blog via a Google or other search? Are you stuck on a post dated some time ago? Do you want to read Gledwood Volume 2 right from "the top" ~ ie from today?
If so click here and you'll get to the most recent post immediately!

Drugs Videos

Most of these come from my Random blog, which is an electronic scrapbook of stuff I thought I might like to view at some time or other. For those who want to view stuff on drugs I've collected the very best links here. Unless otherwise stated these are full-length features, usually an hour or more.

If you have a slow connexion and are unused to viewing multiscreen films on Youtube here's what to do: click the first one and play on mute, stopping and starting as it does. Then, when it's done, click on Repeat Play and you get the full entertainment without interruption. While you watch screen one, do the same to screens 2, 3 and so on. So as each bit finishes, the next part's ready and waiting.

Mexican Black Tar Heroin: "Dark End"

Khun Sa, whose name meant Prince Prosperous, had been, before his death in the mid 2000s, the world's biggest dealer in China White Heroin: "Lord of the Golden Triangle"

In-depth portrait of the Afghan heroin trade at its very height. Includes heroin-lab bust. "Afghanistan's Fateful Harvest"

Classic miniseries whose title became a catchphrase for the misery of life in East Asian prison. Nicole Kidman plays a privileged middle-class girl set up to mule heroin through Thai customs with the inevitable consequences. This is so long it had to be posted in two parts. "Bangkok Hilton 1" (first 2 hours or so); "Bangkok Hilton 2" (last couple of hours).

Short film: from tapwater-clear H4 in the USA to murky black Afghan brown in Norway: "Heroin Addicts Speak"

Before his untimely death this guy kept a video diary. Here's the hour-long highlights as broadcast on BBC TV: "Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict". Thanks to Noah for the original link.

Some of the most entertaining scenes from Britain's top soap (as much for the poor research as anything else). Not even Phil Mitchell would go from nought to multi-hundred pound binges this fast: "Phil Mitchell on Crack" (just over 5 minutes).

Scientist lady shows us how to cook up gear: "How Much Citric?" Lucky cow: her brown is 70% purity! Oddly we never see her actually do her hit... maybe she got camera shy...

And lastly:

German documentary following a life from teenage addiction to untimely death before the age of 30. The decline in this girl's appearance is truly shocking. "Süchtig: Protokoll einer Hilflosigkeit". Sorry no subtitles; this is here for anyone learning German who's after practice material a little more gripping than Lindenstraße!































Nosey Quiz! Have you ever heard voices when you weren't high on drugs?

Manic Magic

Manic Magic

Gledwood Volume 2: A Heroin Addict's Blog

Copyright 2011 by Gledwood